Down By Law

Down By Law. 1986. dir. Jim Jarmusch

You may have seen inspiring films of prison escape like The Shawshank Redemption. Well, this movie isn’t like that…

Zack (Tom Waits) is a recently-fired DJ who gets set-up to deliver a Jaguar from one part of town to another. What he doesn’t know is that the trunk holds illegal contents… Jack (John Lurie) is a pimp who visits a hotel to check up on a possible new recruit. When he gets there, he is framed for a crime he didn’t commit… Bob (Roberto Benigni) is an Italian tourist who accidentally kills a man by throwing an eight ball to his head. The common strand among the three is that they end up in the same New Orleans jail cell.

All the actors of fit perfectly for the film. Roberto Benigni does an excellent job portraying Roberto Benigni: a hyper, optimistic short guy who speaks poor English. His acting comes natural to him, and he becomes the beating heart of this black and white film. Tom Waits suits his role as the Louis Armstrong-voiced DJ who probably listened to too many Tom Waits records. He is a lovable loser, whose stumbling walk makes him appear shorter than his six foot frame. His acting style is directly influenced by his music: drunken, disheveled, and charming. His 1985 album Rain Dogs provides some of the music for the film (maybe Jarmusch thought he would have a lower overhead by paying one of the actors for music credits, too). John Lurie also comes from a music background (he is the leader of the New York “fake jazz” band, the Lounge Lizards, as well as composer for the scores of many Jarmusch films). Lurie is pure downtown New York hipster: he gives off a menacing aura, his mouth looks like he plays the alto sax way too much, and he probably does heroin. At least two of those assessments are true, which makes his onscreen presence that much more commanding. Although one may assume he was cast for the role for the same reason Waits was, no one else could have done the role quite as well.

Down By Law is a wonderful prison escape film. The majority of the first half focuses on Jack and Zack, leading one to believe that the film is headed for a depressing climax. However, Bob brings his natural, Italian sunshine onto the screen and brings all of the characters redemption. Maybe it doesn't reach those emotional highs like Shawshank, but then again, I haven't even seen Shawshank so I wouldn't be able to compare.

Less Than Zero

Less Than Zero. 1987. dir. Marek Kanievska.

“Calling Mister Oswald with the swastika tattoo…”

By now it has become apparently obvious that I like to rent films that have some sort of reference (be it intentional or not) to music. To make the point even more delicious, the 80s was one of my favorite decades for music. It was such a fertile ground for artists. Thus, as a big fan of Elvis Costello, I rented this film and had a big smile on my face when I saw a newspaper clip with the words “Party Girl” in big, bold letters flash across the screen. There was even a Husker Du poster, which was the second cinematic manifestation of their name I’ve seen on film (the first was in Mighty Ducks 3)… but I’m writing a film review, not a paean to the saving grace of rock and roll.

Less Than Zero is another teenage film. However, it is not one of those carefree films where everything turns out perfect in the end. It is a film about cocaine and crack addictions, the shallow emptiness of hard partying, broken families, and huge amounts of expendable income. This is what happens when the American Dream turns into a surrealistic nightmare.

Clay (Andrew McCarthy) returns home from college to find his ex-girlfriend, Blair (Jami Gertz), and his ex-best friend, Julian (Robert Downey, Jr.), in a dysfunctional relationship. They found solace in each other when Clay left… and they found solace in cocaine. Clay tries to help his friends, but it may already be too late…

Without getting into too many details, this film provides a warning to both children and parents of the 80s. All of the teenagers come from affluent, broken homes in Los Angeles. Without that warmth and compassion from their parents, they end up doing bad things. Julian attracts the most trouble. After running up a huge debt with Rip (James Spader), he is forced to pay him off by doing “favors” for him. Less Than Zero shows the dangers of addiction in a shocking, vivid portrayal.

This is a decent film with some fine casting. Robert Downey, Jr. probably took enough cocaine to method act his way throughout the film. Also, James Spader has that slightly charismatic, intimidating look which he used in many of those 80s films (such as Pretty In Pink). The soundtrack is actually not that great, though. Very much the 80s I’d like to forget.

Straight To Hell

Straight To Hell. 1987. dir. Alex Cox

This film is terrible. If Elvis Costello, Joe Strummer, Dennis Hopper, and the Pogues were not in this film, I would have turned the television off at the fifteen-minute mark. It is that bad.

Four bank robbers flee from a crime scene only to get stranded in the desert. With nowhere to go, they hide their money and take shelter in a nearby town. The locals are a bunch of weird coffee addicts and incest kids, mostly with thick Irish accents (courtesy of the fine pub band, the Pogues, who also provide a pretty decent soundtrack). Eventually, the bank robbers are invited as the grand guests of the McMahon family and they spend their time witnessing strange events.

The actual genre of the film lies somewhere between spoof comedy, western, and musical, as characters randomly burst into song in the kooky desert. Actually, the most moving part of the film (perhaps only moving part) is when Cait O’Riordan (Mrs. Elvis Costello at the time) led everyone in singing “O Danny Boy.” Not long after this touching scene, the bank robbers decide they want to kill everybody, so they arm themselves with malfunctioning machine guns provided by a land developer (played by Dennis Hopper).

Looking at the film through an ethical standpoint, it could be deduced that “Greed is bad,” as the bank robbers end up betraying each other for the loot (I don’t want to list any spoilers, but Courtney Love dies… and it is awesome). Almost everyone dies at the end, either due to greed or natural evil impulses brought upon by too much incest. If you want definitive Cox, stick to Repo Man. Overall, I really cannot recommend this film to anyone (except for those who enjoy seeing Courtney Love die… cause really, it was pretty awesome).

Labyrinth: haha....what can you say about this film

So a few days ago, at about 1am, I found myself watching the strangest movie on TBS called Labyrinth. I quickly recognized a young Jennifer Connelly as the main character, and a freakish looking David Bowie?!?!! The story itself is about a girl who accidentally wishes her brother Toby into the captivity of Bowie’s character, the Goblin King. She is then faced with the obstacle of navigating a huge maze to the Goblin King’s castle in order to save her baby brother from being turned into a goblin. Along her journey she encounters countless creatures of very strange appearance that either help her, or deliberately try to set her off course. Eventually she builds a team of allies and together they help each other along the way. The film also has a musical feel to it because there are several songs performed by Bowie’s character throughout the plot.



Overall the movie is very strange, and the only reason it held my attention was because it kept getting weirder and weirder. It sort of leaves you with a feeling of “What the hell was that?” However, apparently there is a sort of cult following fan base, along with merchandise such as T-shirts and toys from the movie. The various creatures and monsters liven things up, but they are distinctly 80’s because they have a muppet feel to them. This one was a little too weird for me though….makes me wonder what the writer and director were tripping on during its production.

(Check it all out) Here is the trailer:

http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/trailer.html?v_id=28019

Mystery Train

Mystery Train. 1989. dir. Jim Jarmusch.

Jun and Mitsuko are Japanese tourists visiting Memphis, the land of their heroes: Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins. They visit the famous Sun Studios and Graceland and end up in a rundown motel, where their decent engrish and Japanese customs confuse the employees.

Luisa is a recent widow from Italy who gets stuck in Memphis for one night due to a flight cancellation. Her inability to say no gives everyone opportunities to rip her off. Eventually, she meets up and rooms with Dee Dee, an impoverished woman on the run from her lover.

Johnny is a recently laid-off Englishman whose wife unexpectedly left him. Spending the majority of his screen time drinking towards oblivion, his friend Will and brother-in-law Charlie try to protect him from the .38 he carries. After an incident involving the gun, the three have to find a place to hide from the law.

Mystery Train is a film where three separate stories occur simultaneously, but are played one after the other. All of them converge in a rundown motel in Memphis, Tennessee, as the voice of Tom Waits announces the King’s “Blue Moon” on the radio. It is a dark comedy that unravels slowly, but it is a very rewarding film.

Most of the humor and topics for ethical discussions lie in the cultural differences displayed during each story. The Japanese tourists are endearing, as they reflect on “Jerry Ree Rewis,” emulate American icons, give Japanese plums as tips to bellboys, etc. The cultural difference manifested with Luisa, the Italian woman, is not as over-the-top. Early on, her unshaven armpits are exposed. Things that may be disgusting to an American may be natural to an Italian. As for Johnny (played by Joe Strummer of The Clash), he’s just a British drunk. However, unlike most of the other white characters in the film, he doesn’t share the same racial tension with black characters that the Americans express. In fact, he enacts violence upon a white man who used the word “nigger” toward Will. He’s the sole white anti-racist in the film… but not necessarily a hero.

Mystery Train is a pretty good independent film of the 80s, and probably one of Jarmusch’s best. There are many hilarious scenes and Jun lights up a cigarette pretty badass-ish. And Steve Buscemi is in it, playing a quintessential Steve Buscemi role.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

Big tells the story of thirteen year old Josh Baskin (Tom Hanks) who makes a wish to be big on a carnival wizard game, so he can do the things older kids do. However, when he wakes up the next morning, he finds out that he's somehow grown to about 30 years old. Of course, his mom freaks out at the stranger in her house--which is a pretty funny sequence--so after convincing his best friend he's who he says he is, Josh goes to New York to track down the carnival machine and get his youth back. However, he finds this'll take a few weeks, so he gets a job at a toy company.

Tom Hanks does a great job of portraying a kid in an adult's body (he was nominated for an Oscar for this role). His childlike innocense while getting just about every kid's wish (growing up) and having to deal with issues of adulthood, such as getting a job, finding a place to live, and handling relationships really shows. Predictably, these situations produce comedic results, though the predictability isn't that big a problem.

It's interesting to notice how Josh changes after having sex. Aside from his jumping for joy in the office in the morning, he suddenly becomes more businessman-like and gets angry at his friend (who's a kid) while he talks on the phone to some business associate. This is a pretty interesting comment on what adulthood does to someone. In short, they stop having fun and appreciating what being a kid is like. That's the message here--no one should be in a hurry to grow up.

An intersting ethical issue the movie brings up is the story Josh makes up to explain his disappearance--that he's kidnapped. Obvioulsy this causes a whole lot of stress and anxiety on his mother's part, who believes a crazy person has her son. Was this right for Josh to do? He does try to explain what happened, but then he resorts to this kidnapping scheme.

I've heard the Jennifer Garner movie 13 Going on 30 is pretty much a remake of Big but with a girl instead of a boy, but I haven't seen that so I can't compare the two. Overall, Big was a funny, light-hearted movie that's worth watching. It stands up to later movies, since the message is still relevant today (as evidenced by Garner's psuedo-remake).

The Heat is On

Beverly Hills Cop, starring Eddie Murphy in one of his earlier roles, falls into the 'fish out of water,' buddy cop, and renegade cop subgenres. After his friend is killed, Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) leaves his hometown of Detroit and goes to Beverly Hills to track down the killer. Since he's a loose canon, Axel's tactics bring him into conflict with the local police, who consider him a problem since they're all entirely by-the-book.

The plot of this movie is certianly nothing new--movies like this came before and after it, but Murphy, and to a lesser extent Judge Reinhold as Detective Billy Rosewood (his 'Butch Cassidy' speech was hilarious), do manage to make it pretty damn funny at times. I read that the Axel Foley role was originally intended for Sylvester Stallone, but after seeing the movie I don't think that would've worked well at all. The movie is also definitely a Jerry Bruckheimer work, with the prerequisite action, sarcasm, and multiple shootouts. In fact, the Rosewood/Foley pairing closely mirrors the Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence)/Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) pairing in 1995's Bad Boys, also produced by Bruckheimer.

Beverly Hills Cop is definitely an 80's movie, especially when looking at the clothes and the music. However, it does stand up to other movies of the genre, since the rest of the movie is fairly solid as an action/comedy film. It did well enough to warrant two sequels, though I haven't seen them so I can't comment there.













Although it's definitely aged a little, I'd still recommend Beverly Hills Cop to anyone looking for a funny, action packed movie that also happens to be one of Eddie Murphy's best performances.

Before Tom went crazy...

Unlike most high school football players, Stef Djordjevic has more to worry about than how well he'll do in the next game. He is convinced that football is his ticket out of Ampipe, the small steel working town that doesn't offer him the opportunity to become an engineer. On top of the pressure from his dad to go to any college that wants him and the anger his brother has about him rejecting the path of the steel worker, Stef has to worry about the possibility of leaving his girlfriend. His only cohort in the plan to escape Ampipe, his best friend Brian, bails when he finds out his girlfriend is pregnant. Stef is torn between his dream to leave and his ties to the close-knit town.
Tom Cruise displays a wide range of emotion in this film, as does his girlfriend, played by Lea Thompson. Though its themes are somewhat cliched, there are enough twists and turns to make it less possible to predict each scene as it comes. The football coach, played by Craig T. Nelson, turns out to be less one-dimensional than we might expect. The same is true of Brian, who decides that having a child is "what he really wants" after all. There is something sweet about all of the characters that draws us into the personal lives of everyone in this dingy industrial town. In this way, it is not a typical 80's high school flick: it is not all about the teenagers, but shows their place in the community.

The gray background and ever-present smog allow us to feel as trapped as Stef does. For good measure, the director includes stereotypical scenes of the high school party, and parking on a cliff overlooking the town. Overall, All the Right Moves is very well made. I would recommend this to anyone who would like to see another teen movie, with a twist. His youth makes Tom Cruise seem more endearing than in later films, but he brings the same great energy to his acting as he does in Jerry Maguire.

P.S. - Don't watch this movie for the football. Scenes of the games are lame.

Clue: The board game becomes a movie!

I was very surprised to learn that the board game Clue had been made into a movie. I used to love that game and would play it for hours upon hours with my brothers. So when I found out that it was a movie, I just had to watch it. Before I began watching it, I wondered how it would be set up, that is, how would all these people be brought together into this one house? Turns out they've all been invited to a dinner party where they are to use aliases and not reveal anything about their true selves. I thought this was a very good idea, and executed well.

As the guests begin to talk, they discover that they all have one thing in common: they are being blackmailed by their host, Mr. Boddy (love the name!). They are all given the gift of a particular weapon, and then begins the real adventure. One by one, people begin dying. While they are all on a quest to discover who the killer is, some people show up at the door: a cop, a stranded motorist, and a singing telegram girl. They, of course, also get sucked into the situation.

There are some great lines in this movie, and for a murder-mystery, it is quite funny. For instance, when Wadsworth, the butler, is asked by one of the guests what he does at the house, he replies: "I buttle." Professor Plum reveals that he works at the World Health Organization, part of the United Nations Organization; so he works for UNO WHO--very clever!!

It's very cool that the DVD of this movie has three different endings. In each one, the murders are committed by someone different. When this movie was released in the theater, the ending was chosen at random, so you never knew which one you would get if you went to the theater more than once.


If you feel like having a good laugh and watching something silly, take a look at Clue. You'll be smiling, and at the same time, you will be trying to figure out who did it. With three different endings, you're bound to be surprised once the killer is revealed.

Rain Man

Mercury Rising was not a great movie..... sorry. But, it's precursor, Rain Man is a wonderful movie. At least, I think they're related. Both movies deal with autistic savantes, who perform mental tasks that the average human being would find impossible.
Rain Man is great. I mean, Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. It doesn't get much better. My only issue with the casting was that the love interest, Susana (Valeria Golino). Unfortunately the only other movies I can remember seeing her in are Hot Shots, and Hot Shot Part Deux. So, I had a lot of trouble taking her seriously.
But, apart from that, I really enjoyed the movie. Dustin Hoffman pulled off the part of savante very well. The scene towards the end of the movie when he bangs his head against the door, as the fire alarm goes off, is extremely uncomfortable. The way his eyes stay unfocused, and his recitation of "Who's on first" are both very convincing. I wasn't sure if all of his behavior fit. There are times when he appears too lucid or "with it". And he becomes very comfortable with being embraced in the "hearing" at the end. I also wasn't sure why he would remember certain things about Cruise's childhood, and be able to articulate his memories, but be so unable to talk about other mundane issues.
Cruise's character also showed drastic behavior changes throughout the film. He starts off being entirely self centered, quiet, greedy, and unfeeling towards his "brother". He ends the film being sensitive and loving. He goes out of his way to cater for his brother, have him treated with respect, and ensure he is taken care of. For the most part this transition is believable. AS Charlie points out, he spends 7 days on the road with Raymond, and learns to love him. I was definitely pulling for him to win custody at the end of the movie, whereas, at the beginning I thought he was a greedy, selfish jerk.
Another question I couldn't help but ask is, Why didn't they just take a train across country? And, why would Raymond be more comfortable with cars or trains, than with airplanes. As Charlie says, flight is the safest mode of transport. Surely, Raymond would know that.
Not sure why Susana popped in and out. She just kind of showed up in Las Vegas. Would she really be able to track them down that easily? Would she really want to find Charlie? And the elevator scene seemed a little forced, too.
So, after I've picked the movie apart, I still think it was darn good. 4 stars.